Tags: Bellarke. Canon-divergence. S3ish. The AI doesn't exist. The 2nd Apocalypse doesn't exist. Humour - I hope. Bickering. Angst. Sexual Tension. Pining. Idiots in Love. Original Female Character.
Summary: Much to everyone's annoyance, Bellamy finds it hard to choose a "substitute" for Clarke. Eventually though, someone catches his eye. Will she meet his expectations when it comes to "ghosting" the Commander's role? Or is Bellamy having second thoughts about the whole plan? Also, our two idiots in love have a rather intimate conversation.
A/N:Thank-you to everyone who has read so far, I've had fun writing this, I hope you enjoy!
Non beta'd as per normal
Chapter Two
Squatting in a far corner of the room, Bellamy surveyed the potential candidates one last time as Lincoln and Octavia ran them through the final series of exercises.
He rubbed a hand over his face and stood up slow and deliberate, in order to garner Octavia's attention, shaking his head in dismissal when he caught her eye.
None of them added up.
Octavia rolled her eyes in exasperation and called an end to the session.
"Bellamy – this is the third lot you've rejected in as many days," she pointed out as Lincoln ushered the women from the hall. "At some stage you have to stop being so picky and just choose somebody."
"If this is going to work, O, we need to do it properly - starting with the right substitute."
Octavia strode off, mumbling something indecipherable under her breath.
Down on the ground, Bellamy helped escort the group to the stables where some of them had housed their horses for the duration of their stay. Octavia and Lincoln had handpicked most of the possible doubles from small, remote communities in order to draw less suspicion.
They had already decided that the mission would be top secret. Only Clarke and her elite security team would be privy to the details.
The success of the entire plan depended on absolute discretion.
Not even the candidates knew what it was all about.
Bellamy watched as the women prepared their rides, wondering whether Octavia was right.
Maybe he was being pedantic.
Truth be told, he was finding it almost impossible to find a "replacement" Clarke. Perhaps that was the problem. He was approaching the task from the wrong perspective.
As he pondered his thought processes, Bellamy's focus was drawn to one of the women as she moved around the stable with a quiet, unassuming confidence.
She hadn't stood out before.
When the woman bent down to examine a gash on one of the horse's hocks, tending to it with a rag and a vial of ointment, Bellamy was struck with a strange sense of familiarity.
"Octavia," he called, signalling for his sister.
He nodded subtly at the subject.
"Why didn't I notice her earlier?" he asked, and to his surprise Octavia laughed.
"Reese?" She questioned with incredulity. "Bellamy, she's a stable hand – a good one at that. She has a way with the animals."
"I can see that," Bellamy huffed.
A stable hand? Of course they would spend all this time and effort searching for the perfect person, when they may have been right here, under their noses, all along.
Bellamy stepped closer and raked his eyes up and down, exploring every inch of Reese's physical exterior, conducting a mental checklist of her appearance and comparing it to Clarke's.
There were some striking similarities.
The woman seemed in a world of her own, continuing to treat the horse's wound, soothing it with a soft song in trigedasleng while she worked.
"Bellamy!" a voice suddenly snapped, bringing him back to reality and alerting the woman to his rather obtrusive presence. "She's not an object," Clarke muttered, for his ears only, as she nudged past. "Apologies for my people, Reese - sometimes they take their jobs far too seriously."
Clarke sent a stifling glare in Bellamy's direction.
"Commander," Reese acknowledged, bowing her head.
"How would you like to join us for lunch in a little bit?" Clarke asked casually, as if it were an everyday invitation.
"It would be my honour," Reese replied.
After, as he, Clarke, Lincoln and Octavia made their way to the parade ground for combat training, Bellamy asked "how did you know I thought she was a possible candidate?"
"It was pretty obvious by the way you were ogling her," Octavia snorted, only to be reprimanded with a warning look from Lincoln.
"I was watching from the stable entrance," Clarke said. "But Octavia's right Bellamy. We've had over thirty women in and out of the tower in the last few days. You didn't show the slightest interest in any of them."
"Why Reese?" Lincoln inquired gently, voicing what they had all been thinking.
They turned to Bellamy, who shrugged.
How could he explain it?
"I don't know," he sighed. "She's a healer, of sorts, I guess."
"I think she's too meek," Octavia added her piece.
"We can train that out of her," Clarke countered.
"She has brown hair," Lincoln remarked nonchalantly.
"That can be easily changed," Clarke replied.
"We don't even know if she's going to agree to the plan," Bellamy deadpanned.
"And that can be arranged," Clarke said with a wink. "Everybody has their price, Bellamy."
When they first broached the subject, they told Reese little. Only that the role would be highly risky, highly secretive and that she would be working in close quarters with the Commander.
Clarke was adamant that they highlight the fact that Reese would have to surrender many of her freedoms – including the way she looked, and her associations with others.
"You will be restricted in your movements and from seeing family members and friends," Clarke clarified. "But in return, you may have anything you desire."
After a short period of consideration, Reese accepted the role.
"I have no–one," she said. "And all I ask is that my people are protected, and provided for."
As Monroe showed the new recruit to her room, Lincoln explained that Reese had come from an isolated village in a valley on the southernmost border of the Ice Nation. The village was famous for their horse breeding and training, but, under the rule of Queen Niyah, Azgeda had forced them to forfeit the majority of their purebred stock year after year, leaving little for them to trade with the other villages and clans.
"So they're economically vulnerable?" Kane questioned.
"Yes," Lincoln concurred. "Many families send their eldest and sometimes only children, away to work as stable hands and horse healers in exchange for goods. Some return, taking their earnings back to the village to help sustain the community, but others stay, finding nothing of worth to go home to."
"Is she likely to be a loose cannon when it comes to Azgeda?" Bellamy asked. He had to know where the cracks in their plans lay. Reese's history could make her liable on the job. The last thing they needed right now was to appear weak in the face of the Ice Nation.
"It's a possibility," Lincoln considered carefully. "Not all of the villagers stood back passively and allowed Azgeda to pilfer their livelihood. In the beginning, some families revolted. Reese's was one of them."
Bellamy nodded.
So, Reese was no stranger to loss, like the rest of them. Perhaps that would help the way she performed the role. He had witnessed first-hand, the immense amount of suffering Clarke had endured, during their short time on earth. Not to mention her father's floating.
He made a mental note to keep an eye on Reese's reaction to anything Ice Nation related, and then set about preparing her specialised training schedule, with Clarke.
Perhaps this plan would work after all.
Twenty four hours later, he wasn't so sure.
It was hot, he was tired and they seemed to be getting nowhere with Reese.
She was capable in combat, that they had discovered - a little too capable, for Bellamy's liking.
"You have to fight scrappier," he told her for what felt like the tenth time, shaking his sweaty arms and legs loosely, as if trying to demonstrate.
"What is scrappier?" Reese asked, standing still and stoic as a statue.
"Okay Bellamy," Clarke chipped in, rising from the practice mat where she had been watching. "I think it's time for a break."
The three of them had been spending almost every waking hour together.
Reese's responsibility was to ghost everything Clarke did, while Bellamy took notes. It was up to him to answer her questions and correct her. She was a dutiful student, there was no doubt, but the more Bellamy got to know her, the less confident he felt about the mission.
Her and Clarke were yards apart.
"You know," Clarke said, sidling up beside him on the balcony where he sat cooling his bare skin in the open breeze. "I'm beginning to get offended by your constant reminders that I can't fight."
"I never said you couldn't fight," he objected. "I just said you fight dirty."
"Whatever gets me ahead," she smiled playfully and nudged his shoulder with hers.
Behind them, Reese was unable to hear what they were talking about, but she observed their interaction with interest, while she stretched out the soreness from the training session.
"One day, it'll get you dead," Bellamy grumbled, less light-hearted than he'd intended.
She laughed at his sombreness. There was that good ol' fashioned Blake sobriety again.
"What's got you so down today?" She probed jovially.
"I don't know Clarke," he stole a glance over his shoulder at Reese. "Do you really think this is going to work?"
"I hope so," she quipped without missing a beat. "I'm sick of you having to chaperone me everywhere!"
"Ha ha," he replied, but smiled despite himself.
"Seriously though Bellamy," Clarke's tone shifted. "The whole reason I agreed to this plan was because Octavia thought you were working obsessively hard." She looked at him with that eager sense of intrigue of hers, like she was trying to nut something out.
"Come on Clarke, you know how Octavia exaggerates," Bellamy brushed it away.
"She told me about the other night, outside my room," Clarke added with a curious trepidation.
He flashed her a searching look and then dropped his eyes to the ground – disconcerted. Why was she bringing this up? Was she trying to make him feel uncomfortable? What exactly did she want to know? He refused to give in to her provocations.
So he shrugged it off.
"It's my job to know everything about you Clarke."
"Everything Bellamy?"
"Everything." He said it with such a straight face and an earnest, intense stare, that this time Clarke was forced to look away.
Now she was the one feeling uncomfortable.
And yet, she still found the courage to ask him, "how did you even figure it out?"
Bellamy cleared his throat and looked dead-ahead, out over the capital, below them.
"Let's just say I once made the same mistake Octavia did."
"Right," Clarke thought about this revelation for a second. "What stopped you?"
He turned slowly and looked directly at her. Not at her, but into her - like he truly knew her. Like there was nothing left for him to know.
Clarke's eyes widened and her mouth dropped as she realised – nothing had stopped him.
He had heard her scream, opened the door and entered the room.
She must have been so engrossed in her private moment of ecstasy that she didn't notice the intrusion.
She wondered if he'd stayed and watched, or shied away.
Together they held each other's gaze as if locked in some weird game of chicken, waiting for someone to make the next move.
The stillness between them was so serene, that Bellamy could hear even Clarke's heart beating, until movement behind them reminded them that Reese was still in the room.
Bellamy squinted and shook his head as if shaking himself from a daze. He got to his feet in a hurry, heading to the back of the room where he picked up his discarded shirt and pulled it over his naked torso.
"I'm gonna get cleaned up before the ambassador's meeting," he muttered as he walked towards the door. "Monroe and Miller are on post if you need anything."
Personally, he needed some space and clarity, and maybe a cool shower.
A/N: Thanks so much for reading. I'm feeling really out of the loop at the moment with this fandom, as only up to Ep 6 of S4 here in Australia, so I would really appreciate your comments (sans spoilers), even if you just wanna say hello!
I'm on tumblr as sarmaarmour, but a little quiet at the moment, because of the above!
xoxo